“I think we can feel happy about Arnold now. I used to think he’d live to carry out my plans—but he’s done a better thing than that—he’s died carrying out his own. I want you to remember that you’ve got a man in your family to be proud of Elise. Lots of men die for their country, but Arnold did a bigger thing than that—he died for the future. He was up against the best army in the world, because he felt that if we knocked it out, there wouldn’t have to be any more armies. “I guess I’ll stay over here in England and see the thing through. They want petrol and I can raise petrol. But if you feel badly, honey, I’ll see you safely home again. You’ve only got to say the word. “You’ve got your life before you, and our own country is the finest in the world for young life—don’t you worry any about me. I find England feels like a cushion in the small of my back, but you’re too young to need a cushion.” “I’d rather stay with you, Papa,” Elise asserted. That had been her great decision, and she had never regretted it; even when Papa was most unkind about Hermione. Mr. Brett’s eyes lost their smile. His mind ceased to rest on the picture of Elise. They hardened a little as if what they rested on was the face of an enemy; then they became fixed. It was not wholly grief that held the imagination of Mr. Brett, though down whatever avenue of thought his fancy carried him, this one picture always met him at the end. The picture that held him was that of a small hillside near Ypres. He had visited this sector of the front on one of his many silent unnoticeable missions. He wanted to see how his gas worked, and where his son was buried. When the officer conducting him had pointed out that on account of a promiscuous shell fire that morning, the situation was not a healthy one for the living, Mr. Brett had given a curious little laugh and replied, “Why, I guess I’ve been quite lately in a more unhealthy spot than this.” The officer supposed that Mr. Brett was referring to the Chemin des Dames, in which quarter the quiet American had also had some business to transact. But Mr. Brett had not been thinking of that famous and precarious ridge—his mind had returned to a large south room in the Hotel Ritz in Paris where he had last watched Princess Girla drinking excellent chocolate before the air raids had persuaded her to leave for a more convenient spot. “I guess,” Mr. Brett observed, regarding a shell-burst to the left of them with lacklustre eyes, “you men up here in the front don’t know what danger is.” The young officer looked offended, but Mr. Brett patted him gently on the shoulder. “Sure, you know all about death,” he said kindly, “but when you get away from here, you’ll have to start afresh and learn something about life, and as far as I can see the worry about life is—that it goes on. Death only stops.” The A.D.C. pointed to a small stick in the ground.